George Osborne has locked himself into an austerity cage. Now it threatens to destroy his career

According to Janan Ganesh, one of the political correspondents at the Economist, and George Osborne's biographer, the Chancellor takes the Financial Times very seriously. "Their editorial verdicts are often seen as shorthand for respectable, moderate opinion among elites", wrote Ganesh, shortly after the Budget.

If that's true, then the Chancellor will be worrying this morning. The newspaper has devoted its top leader column to a full-throated attack on Osborne, while across the page, they've given space to Paul Goodman, the co-editor of Conservative Home, to explain why Tory patience with him is being tested. As they say in the leader:

Mr Osborne’s silence has allowed the toxic message to take hold in some quarters that the government uses the rhetoric of togetherness in adversity while taking care of its rich chums. The chancellor can still counter this – and he must. The central thrust of his economic policy is sound. It is the glue that binds the coalition together. Were doubts to set in, the government could unravel…

…First, he must defend and explain the government’s policies better. And second, he needs to devise meaningful ways to ensure the flow of credit to businesses and to encourage more public investment spending. Mr Osborne’s silence has cost the government. He must recover some of his old vim – and fast.

It was the Chancellor's job to deliver economic recovery and victory in 2015. Instead, we have a double-dip recession – a prospect that Osborne dismissed as ludicrous – and a Conservative Party so in the dumps that it looks almost certain to lose to Ed Miliband in 2015. "No wonder Tory patience with Mr Osborne has frayed post-budget", writes Goodman.

When Tory MPs wonder about who to blame, it is Mr Osborne’s name that comes up. After all, is he not both Chancellor and campaign strategist? Are not the economy and the Tory party in his hands?

In 2010, George Osborne made a big gamble – he decided that with growth apparently accelerating, he could raise taxes quickly and slash spending – in particular, capital investment, which has plummeted – without undermining the recovery so much that we would notice. Now that the bet has been lost, Tory MPs are looking for another way out.

On the Right, they revere the former Defence Secretary Liam Fox, who has called for tax cuts to stimulate growth of the supply side, funded by deeper cuts to public services. Osborne can safely ignore that bunch – but there are growing whispers from the Left of the party too.

Recently, I spoke to an MP who is very close to the leadership who told me how exasperated he is trying to get the Treasury to understand that not all borrowing is the same, and that more infrastructure investment wouldn't rattle the markets – even £20-£30 billion worth.

We had a long discussion about what sort of event would be enough for the Chancellor to properly U-turn. A Greek exit from the euro would do it, he said, but really we need something less catastrophic. "A Greek exit is the only one that's likely though, isn't it?", he concluded sadly.

George Osborne has locked himself into an austerity cage. He thought that behind its bars, he was protected from the markets, but instead, he's trapped. The economy is collapsing, and he can't move, even though all rational analysis says he needs to. If he doesn't soon, his career prospects may be swept away from underneath him.